Remembering Richard Ortner A BRIEF REFLECTION BY CATHY YOUNG Richard Ortner was a mentor and friend. When I joined the school in 2011 to head the Dance Division, I knew that Boston Conservatory was different, unlike any place I’d ever worked before. There was an ethos at Boston Conservatory that was familial and supportive while at the same time energizing and motivating—a place where everyone was pushing each other to do their best and be their best. The community was extraordinarily talented and represented an incredible range of aesthetics and ideas, and yet everyone was united by a common calling: the arts. This was a place where excellence, on every level, to every degree, was reinforced: excellence in teaching, excellence in technique, excellence in presentation, excellence in performance, excellence in artistic expression, and, above all, excellence in one’s conduct—showing gratitude, compassion, and empathy, not just on the stage but on a personal level. At the heart of this community was Richard. Richard believed artists to be storytellers of our humanity—inheritors of the past and shapers of the present—whose stories form the foundation for future generations of artists. Art is a reflection of the world around us and helps us to understand our place in it. In his words, artists “work constantly to find true empathy—to understand others, to feel with them, to translate and filter their experience through our own, and in the end to share that experience, transformed, as a way of enlarging the human journey." Boston Conservatory is thriving today because Richard understood that artistry is an expression of the human condition and that each individual student, faculty, and staff member brings their own unique perspective to telling humanity’s collective story. The Conservatory’s focus on developing individual artistic voices is the bedrock of its education—it is what makes art authentic and true and what fuels the magic that moves us. Richard’s support for and celebration of all of the Conservatory’s distinct voices has been a model for me as I lead this institution into its next chapter. His legacy of excellence in the arts and compassion for each other is instilled in each of us, and the world is better for it. Cathy Young serves as senior vice president and executive director of Boston Conservatory at Berklee, a role she assumed in 2017 after Richard Ortner’s retirement.
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